President's Message

April 2020

A Time Without Precedent

Dear Maryland ACC Colleagues,

We are living through an extraordinary time. Not for a hundred years has the US faced an epidemic disease that has so affected national life and stressed the health care system. Governor Hogan just issued a “Stay at Home Order”, and my own hospital is undergoing extraordinary restructuring to prepare for a surge of COVID-19 cases. Many other hospitals in Maryland and around the country are doing the same.

We should be proud of our many Maryland ACC colleagues who are stepping up to serve in this time of challenge. Many are on the front lines of clinical care, planning, and preparedness. FITs, cardiologists, nurses, and other allied professionals on the CV team are volunteering to serve where needed on medicine wards and ICUs. Maryland FITs have produced and disseminated more information on COVID-19 through the CardioNerds Podcast. We have all reduced our outpatient practices to minimize risk of viral transmission and to conserve PPE. We are understandably concerned about the impact of these changes on the viability of our practices and the welfare of our patients.

Our ACC national organization has been on the forefront of the crisis, issuing guidance on use of RAAS antagonists, convening a 2-part webinar with the Chinese Cardiovascular Association on medical aspects of the epidemic in China, then a 3-part webinar with MedAxiom designed to help practices prepare and ramp up telemedicine. The ACC rapidly stood up the ACC COVID-19 Hub, which has quickly become one of the most widely used and trusted resources for information on COVID-19 in the world. The ACC played a strong role advocating for key provisions of the CARES Act and continues to advocate for the federal government to facilitate production and distribution of PPE, ventilators, and other critical equipment. ACC is producing valuable information and guidance on a daily basis. You can check out the ACC COVID-19 Hub here.

Amidst all of these efforts, and following the disappointing cancellation of the Live ACC.20/WCC meeting in Chicago, the ACC was somehow able to rapidly pivot and put together an extraordinary 3-day ACC.20/WCC Virtual event, filled with great content, keynote lectures, late-breaking clinical trials and more. Preliminary information is that over 25,000 unique participants from over 100 countries logged into the conference over the 3-day event. If you could not join during the Virtual meeting, no worries – everyone will have free access to all the meeting content on demand for 90 days. With CME!

One of the disappointments incident to the cancellation of the live meeting is the inability of our new Fellows (FACCs) and Associates (AACCs) to participate in Convocation. Fortunately, everyone will have the opportunity to do so in Atlanta during ACC.21. We congratulate the 23 newly-inducted Fellows and Associates affiliated with Maryland ACC who are listed below. We thank you for taking this important step and hope that you will all find opportunities to participate in Chapter activities over the course of the year.

And as always, please send MDACC leadership and staff your comments, questions, and suggestions to president@marylandacc.org. We are particularly interested in knowing how the epidemic is affecting your practice and your patients, and what ACC can do to help.

Sincerely,